10. You say "Faito! Faito!" instead of "Fight! Fight!"

9. You always have a packet of tissues on you, no matter what.

8. Your idea of fast food is a gyu-don from Matsuya.

7. You take someone else's umbrella without batting an eye when leaving a convenience store, because someone has already taken yours.

6. You get confused when there isn't a ticket machine in the restaurant and don't know how to pay the bill.

5. You start using other people as backrests on the train.

4. You see a little elementary school boy run past in shorts so short it's like he's not wearing pants, and think, "Aw, how cute!"

3. You tell your friend, "Hold on, I'm hungry, I'm going to make myself some miso soup," without thinking there's anything weird about it.

2. You fall asleep on the train and wake up exactly as it pulls into your station.

1. You see your friend eating an oreo in Philadelphia and mistake it for a riceball.


OREO? WHAT'S THAT???

I'M SORRY MELODY /SOB

Don’t worry guys, my Adventures in Baltimore post will come someday, it will, it will! (I pray I don’t forget everything by the time I write it.)

In any case, over the weekend I went up to Berkeley for some fun, incidentally celebrating part of my sister’s birthday with her. :)

Without further ado!

Here are some useful facts for future high school juniors/seniors to know:

1. Berkeley’s administration is decidedly unhelpful. Not only are they closed on weekends, they are closed on Fridays (to students) as well. Pah!
2. Berkeley has become much tamer than it was two decades ago. How do I know this, being not yet two decades old? THERE ARE STOP SIGNS THAT REMAIN UNMARKED. /shock!

(Most of them, you see, look like this--




and my personal favourite



hahaha! moving on...)

3. In terms of little eateries and restaurants and the like, Berkeley outnumbers Baltimore (at least, the area around JHU) by about 10x. I would even venture so far as to say 20x without, I think, straying too far off the mark.
4. The same applies to bookstores and little funny shops and the like.
5. A lot of these places tend to be more run-down, with a secondhand feel (but often v. cozy with v. good food or v. diverse selection of books or v. many interesting little trinkets etc), which I personally prefer because I've always been more of a hostel person than a hotel person, but others may not.
6. The student cooperatives, while undeniably filled with many party animals and druggies and smokers, also have quite a few perks.

Upsides--
> cheap
> industrial kitchen (yessss)
> food/kitchen access 24/7
> freepiles ♥♥♥
> can draw on walls
> way nicer common spaces than dorms
> meet (debatably) more interesting people
> no pressure to drinking/drugs (as opposed to frats/sororities)
> democratic petitioning

Downsides--
> people who drink/smoke pot
> too much partying (at the large places)
> messy
> ...did I mention messy?
> I did say messy, didn't I?
> Now, I'm sure I mentioned messy somewhere up there...
> TOO MESSY GRRRR

To be fair, the mess is mostly in the large, 100+ people co-ops. The 50-70 people ones are medium messes, and the small 15-30ish people ones are actually rather neat and tidy.

(I mentioned this to my father, who decided I knew nothing of true messes and promptly chastened me by telling me a story about these college kids, back in the days of Taiwan U, who managed to catch a thief in the middle of the night. How?

The thief picked the lock and got into the room in the dead of night. Everyone was asleep. He took one step (in pitch darkness).

CLANK.

?!

The thief took another step

CLANKITY.

and realized that the floor was drowning in empty beer bottles. Panicking, he began attempting a not-so-stealthy retreat

CLANKITY CLANK CLANK!

as the students in the dorm woke up

CLINK CLANK!

and jumped out of their beds to try and catch the thief

CLANKITY CLINKTY CLANKITY CLINK CLONK CLANK CLANK CLANK THUMPCLANKCLANK CLIIIINK!!!

the thief tripped and fell, mired in beer bottles

THUMPCLANK! THUMPCLANK!

was immediately jumped by two students

CLINKITY

and thus caught.


My mother overheard this story at the dinner table, and said to me, "Boys.")

Aaanyway, a few more!

7. There is such a phenomenon at U.C. Berkeley which I term The Saratoga Bubble, i.e. kids from Saratoga hang out with other kids from Saratoga, and, while they do make other friends, never quite step out of the bubble that is Saratoga. This I wouldn't worry much about, as U.C. Berkeley has a rich enough environment that it likely takes more of an effort to remain in the bubble than to step out of it. All depends, I suppose.
8. The Japanese & Thai food at Berkeley is better than the Korean/Chinese/other Asian food.
9. The North Berkeley BART Station is actually more like the West Berkeley BART Station when compared relatively to the (downtown) Berkeley BART station. Just so you know.

And now for some really random insights/observations--

10. Chickens are really dumb. I mean, I always kind of knew that (have you ever heard of a smart chicken?), but seeing their idiocy IRL is really something else. They're almost worse than fish.

11. Berkeley has a frisbee team~

12. Marijuana is surprisingly easy to grow (I guess that's why it's called "weed").

13. Rubiks Cube ("Cubing") Competitions are almost entirely male.

14. Hazelnut ice cream is very very delicious.

15. If you don't know what "flannel seed" is, a pansexual white freak will consider you a freak of nature. Considering the nature of the one making this statement, what does that actually make you?

16. Most Asian children from Saratoga do not know what "flannel seed" is.

17. Flighty boys slowly change the girls around them into flighty girls.

18. Maybe the reason Koreans are so good at Starcraft is because they DON'T create Starcraft classes and DON'T analyze Starcraft with differential equations and just, you know, play. o___o !!!

19. I really don't keep track of my senior class that well.

aaaaaaaaand 20. My Taiwan boy has a girlfriend~ ♥ Stephy have they told you yet? (Don't tell your mom!)

What cuties. ^^

And so I conclude for the day (or more accurately, the weekend). Hasta la vista, baby!

I'm so happy~ ^^ today yokainomiko, my little sister #2, everyone's faaavorite Taiwan boy, and my one and only pansexual white freak (for ever and ever and ever ♥) came to school to see me! :) I know, we're a strange bunch aren't we.

So we went out to lunch at Cupertino Village and in the process merged with a whole other horde of people whom I don't know quite as well but good enough to get by, and we had Korean food to satiate my longing for Neoguri. :3

This resulted in me missing most all of 6th! The kids were still in the PAL center when I got back, so I decided forget the rest of 6th and joined AP Chinese instead, which... kind of made me want to cry and reflect upon our AP/honors system. but then, I don't think any of the other language classes are any better, so... let's leave it at that.

Checked in w/Zarco and helped him file some stuff I should've filed during 6th, resulting in my staying ~half an hour after school got out.

As I finally wrapped up everything and strolled out the gate to my car, I espied someone walking a dog.

homg how CUTE! was my first thought when I saw the dog. It was white and fluffy and looked a lot like Rice, must be another American Eskimo, I thought to myself as I looked up, and barely had the time to take in the fact that the leash looked oddly like our leash and the book the girl was reading looked oddly like my book and the girl looked oddly like my sister before I realized that it WAS my sister walking our dog right outside the school gates and I burst out "Amy!" before my brain processed any further.

Life is strange like that sometimes.

Anyway apparently my sister wanted a transcript (scholarship apps). So I accompanied her to the office, where alas! my phone rings!

I escape outside to where I can safely pick up without getting in trouble, and hear my lost love's voice on the line.

"Adela," says Sarah Tang, who once sat right next to me in Econ and now sits across the ENTIRE ROOM in Gov. "When are we studying for the test today?"

"Hmmm, I don't know," I say. "What time's it now?"

See, Sarah lives about a block down from me, but the problem was that I was sitting on a bench just outside the office, at school, i.e. I couldn't exactly go over even if I wanted to.

"Well, tutorial just about ended so it's around 3, I think?" she says.

"Hrm." I watch a girl in a distance making her way down the quad steps. "Your house or mine?"

"I don't know, I'm good either way," she says.

Wait, that girl looks an awful lot like Sarah, I think.

"Sarah, is that you?" I ask aloud.

"What? Where?"

The girl on the steps pauses and looks around.

Definitely her.

"Turn around!" I screech.

She swivels. I wave like a madwoman. She comes running over to my bench.

"You're still at school!" she says. "I thought you'd gone home."

"I thought you'd gone home."

Life is really strange sometimes.

We end up tossing a coin to determine whose house to study at (Sarah's). Then we part ways, as she has to go home and I have to wait for my sister. When I return many people inside the office are fawning over our dog, despite dogs (technically?) not being allowed on campus. harharhar he's just too cute. (or that rule's just too stupid, either way.)

So I give my sister & my dog a ride home. Whereupon I sign online, facebook my Malaysian friend about Skype, check my email, and find out that UChicago has waitlisted me.

Before I have time to digest this information, my Skype phone rings. I pick it up.

"Hi!" says my Malaysian friend, sitting in Malaysia in front of her computer. And then "OMG I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU FOR SUCH A LONG TIME AHHHHH AHHHHH AHHHHHHHH~" (while I respond in kind).

After we both calm down again...

"What time is it over there?" I ask.

"7:14 in the morning," she says.

"Don't you have school?"

"Yeah." She looks at the bottom top corner of her screen. "In approximately 12 minutes."

...you have to understand something here. I don't even USE Skype normally. I don't even know why I was signed on. I only signed on because I facebooked her about it ~two minutes ago and signed on to add her to my buddy list.

Life is really, really strange sometimes.



edit: homg I can't believe I just spent 5+ hours over at Sarah's place. I was never this studious back in sophomore/junior year!

(then again, I don't think I had the time to be this studious sophomore/junior year)

(then again, there was the time we spent eating peanuts. and drinking minestrone. and playing canon in D on the piano. and that last hour or two of VIRUS SLAYING and computer purgifying.)

but we were studying the whole time through nonetheless!

if I get anything less than perfect on the test tomorrow I will kill something.

So today I woke up and my parents were nowhere to be found. After sleepily showering and scrounging up some scraps for breakfast, I found this note on the board:

妞
吾等上莊子去也
下午返
如有事打細胞電話

... ...

Last week it was just

妞
吾等佛學課耍子去也
-爸

and I thought that was bad.

真是有一點哭笑不得... 天知道你只在我家看得到這種留言. ((trans: dunno whether to laugh or to cry. god knows you can only see a message like that at my house.)) Simultaneously nerdy, literary, stupid, and hilarious at the same time.

edit: for those who don't speak chinese, the notes are fairly ordinary in meaning. they translate to:

Niu (my nickname; means 'girl')
We are at Zhuangzi class
Back in afternoon
Call cell if you need anything

and

Niu
We are at Buddhism class
-Dad

What's funny about it is that it's written in old style (Monkey-king style) Chinese. Much like if he'd left a note in Shakespearean English. And he translated 'cell' literally to 'cell' instead of 'cellular' and... /facepalm

Only baba.

edit: Oh, in other news, I read a great fic called The Secret of Slytherin by Kirinin and it is very good. Definitely better overall than Sacrifices, which MAY BE because the author was not pumping out a chapter a day, which I think is only really acceptable if you're doing something like NaNo. The plot overall is very well-knit; the only issue I have is that the characters, while all well-characterized and likable and all, seem to resemble one another too much. Harry and Draco and Severus and Remus... even Ron and Hermione, all of them were excellent but I can't shake off the feeling that they were all fundamentally the same. Same root. I know there was the entire inlaid theme of 'we are all Slytherins sometimes' and 'we are all Gryffindors sometimes too!' and the general 'we are all everything at some point' idea, but it still bothered me. People can be radically different while still holding to similar ideas... for example, I think Maya illustrates diff characters v. well (it always comes back to Maya). Also it was Gryffindor/Slytherin-centric and neglected the other houses somewhat, but that was probably unavoidable as it was Harry-centric.

lol my 干爸 is hilarious.

apparently when various 老人s tell him 要有修養 (this really an implicit reference to the fact that my 干媽 a.k.a. 張阿姨 my favoritest 阿姨 ever looks and acts much younger than she actually is), he retorts: 修養重要還是保養重要?

...去問你兒子吧.

LOLWUT. silly witty old 律師.

他真的很愛說話, though. 話匣子一開了就關不起來. in some way really reminds me of 爸爸，actually.

... ...

我現在搞不清楚我到底想用英文想東西還是中文想東西. 剛剛說了太多 *pure* 中文,害我變成 half and half 了. 唉...

不過我太久沒回一個只說中文的 setting 裡倒是真的. 家裡雖說是說，可是不完全. 而且 there's Chinglish, and there's Chinglish. base language 還是有一個，只是有些 words 用另外一個... well hmm. actually I guess 不一定. 天知道.

管那麼多， 說穿了就是太久沒回 Asia 了. 暑假都往歐洲跑. 唉. I miss Asia. T__T

In other news, I was going to post about how tired double-length piano lesson and orchestra today made me, but I now think I will be more productive going to sleep, so I shall do that instead! yay.

(...and I shall dream of Taiwan.)

edit: 為什麼 為什麼 打字的”天“上一橫比下一橫長上一橫應該比較短不是嗎我們都要變成日本人了是不是 ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh~

( come on, you know you want to hear about how Adela missed the Caltrain... FOUR TIMES )

It's almost worth having grandchildren just to tell them this story.

gosh I'm so moodswingy. happy, then morose, then happy, then morose, etc.

still feeling a bit blah, but diverted much by the amusement of a recent epiphany:

a person who swims = a swimmer
a person who runs = a runner
a person who talks a lot = a talker
a person who whispers a lot = a whisperer
a person who says harrumph a lot = a harrumpher
a person who says fuck a lot = a fucker

THEREFORE

a person who says "hark!" a lot
(envision, little stick figure running around going "hark! hark hark!")

must =

A HARKER!!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA WAY TO THINK OF RETARDED JOKES ADELA.

/idiot.

edit: So I went and looked up the history of Harker the school, which comes from some woman named Miss Harker. Like Miss Baker. Or Miss Barber. Or Miss I-am-a-loser-and-have-no-job-to-fit-my-last-name-er.

So wtf IS a harker? You're not telling me they really had people in medieval times whose job was to run around yelling at people 'HARK!'?? Because if that's true I'll laugh until my eyebrows fall off.

So mother and I are dutifully preparing lunch in the kitchen, and squabbling to each other about little things ("Look at you, can't you be bothered to sweep the bread crumbs away after breakfast-" "Mom, why did you throw that bread away, it's perfectly edible-" "No it's not, I bought fresher bread this morning-" "That doesn't mean the old one's not edible-"), when I remembered the deal about the Peking Acrobats and dutifully reported to her on the status of my friends.

ADELA: Well, Pumaboy says he can come if we go to the evening show, I haven't asked Pinecone yet but I think his chances are somewhat slimmer...
MOTHER (washing dishes): Oh? Whose boyfriends are these? Debra's? Carolyn's?
ADELA: ...no one's...?
MOTHER: Why, how do you know them then?
ADELA: ...camp?
MOTHER: Ah. *pause* So, whose boyfriends are they?
ADELA: ...they're both single.
MOTHER: What! How-
ADELA: Mom, are you under the conception that any male friends I have, I know only because they are my friends' significant others?
MOTHER: Yes, of course!

My parental unit is of the most singular mindset. I gave up debating the issue with her after several more minutes. 's obvious no matter how I explain to her, and how she nods and seems to understand, the next time she sees any male I am acquainted with, her subconscious will still assume it is because they are boyfriends of my friends. Because no one has friends of the opposite gender, of course!

I just thought that was kind of hilarious. I mean, it's not like the Chatgroup just started or anything... XP

( random funny of the day )

1926 edit: Was feeling sore! Not in the workout sore fashion, but in the haven't-worked-out-for-too-long wtf fashion, because, yes, actually, sitting too much/long makes you sore too. Ever sat in a plane for 15+ hrs? There you go.

Out and ran 5 miles. Am feeling much better now, and missing XC slightly, but would just like to note here to everyone who's still doing XC that Adela NO LONGER HAS TO RUN IN THE HEAT! She can run in the evening when she feels like it. When it's COOL. HAH.

Ahem.

I miss frisbee. =/ And also, tag, even though we're all wayyyy too big now for the playground structure.